


don't need no water

by eatcheeseliveforever



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Crack, Gen, except their souls a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21896293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatcheeseliveforever/pseuds/eatcheeseliveforever
Summary: "Well," said Stan, hands shoved into his jacket pockets to hide the fact that they were trembling, "that was an evening.  Whose dumb idea was it to seeCatsin the first place?"
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	don't need no water

**Author's Note:**

> you would scream too if it happened to you

"Well," said Stan, hands shoved into his jacket pockets to hide the fact that they were trembling, "that was an evening. Whose dumb idea was it to see _Cats_ in the first place?"

"Richie's," said Eddie, pointing over his shoulder. "And Mike's, he said he likes T. S. Eliot."

"And musicals," Mike added.

"In my defense," said Richie, from where he was cowering behind Eddie like he wasn't four inches taller than his boyfriend and a lot more conspicuous, "I was expecting it to be a hilarious trainwreck. I wasn't expecting _that_."

Bill nodded. "I don't think I've ever written anything that terrifying. I don't think I ever will."

Another siren sounded from down the street as another fire truck wailed past.

"That didn't mean you had to jump up in the middle of the movie shouting, 'It's not real, it's not real.'"

"It's called PTSD," snapped Richie. "Look it up."

"And Ben had to start screaming, 'You're a clown, you're a clown, you're just a fucking clown' at James Corden's character.'"

Ben shrugged. "It worked last time."

"We could have stopped there, the rest of the theater was even joining in on shouting abuse at the movie like it was part of the show, but then Beverly set fire to the screen," said Stan, because, holy shit, this was his life now.

Beverly also shrugged. "I had Ben's hairspray and my lighters in my purse. Everyone was freaking out, and I didn't have any fence spikes on hand."

"And fire kills monsters," said Eddie.

"Fire kills monsters."

As Stan recalled, yelling insults at them and then literally crushing their hearts killed monsters, but he wasn't going down that path. "Mike was shouting something about cucumbers."

"There's an old French legend about a demon that takes the shape of a cat, if only imperfectly, and sits on your face while you sleep in order to suck out your soul through its butthole," said Mike. "It can be repelled by cucumbers and holy water."

They all considered this for a moment, and then Beverly said, "Mike, honey, I'm pretty sure that's just regular cats."

Eddie gave a full-body shudder. "They give you parasites, you know that? These worms that hatch in your brain and make you do their bidding."

They all considered _that_ for a moment.

"Fuck you," said Eddie. "There was an article about it in the _Atlantic._ "

"Guys," said Stan, before Eddie could get out his phone and google the _Atlantic_ article and shove it all in their faces, "this is the fourth time we've done a meet-up and the fourth time it's ended with a destroyed building. Doesn't this bother anyone?"

"We tried group therapy last year," said Richie. "Remember? But then Ben's lake house burned down, fell over, and sunk into the lake."

Ben nodded. "Yeah, we shouldn't let Richie choose what we do anymore."

"Hey!"

"Technically," said Mike, "the first meet-up was all on me." 

"All in favor of not letting Richie set the itinerary for 2020?" Beverly asked, as a news van rushed past them and towards the burning theater at the end of the block, and the former patrons clustered outside. The audiences from other movies were watching the theater burn, horrified, or on their phones, talking to or texting their loved ones. The audience from the Cats theater was cheering as it burned.

Everyone except Richie and Mike raised their hands. Richie mouthed "traitor" at Eddie; Eddie glared at him; Richie raised his hand, too.

"Okay," said Bill. "Hey, there's this old resort in Colorado, they c-close during winter and hold artist retreats. The hotel is ancient, I think it was build a hundred years ago. You'd get a kick out of it, B-Ben."

"I don't have a good feeling about this, Bill," said Mike.

Stan didn't either, but he was sure it was just the lingering creeping horror of _Cats._ Mostly sure, anyway.


End file.
